CRYSTAL BEACH -- A couple from Crystal Beach shared a chilling tale of survival with 11 News Wednesday.
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Frank and Dee Ann Sherman were forced to ride out the hurricane in their beachfront home after trying to evacuate.
The couple, who owns a wrecker service, was busy helping tow vehicles out of high water and time got away from them.
The Shermans were caught off guard when the water engulfed the roads around their house and washed out a bridge.
They were stranded as a powerful Category 2 hurricane barreled toward the Texas coast.
Frank Sherman called 11 News Friday morning while the wind howled and the waves roared ashore outside their home.
They were hoping the Coast Guard could rescue them -- but it was too late for that.
At 10:30 a.m. Friday, Frank Sherman said the water was already three feet high under his home, which sits on 16 foot stilts.
Dee Ann knew she wasn't going to be able to save all of the birds in their aviary, so she set them free.
"I had to just open up and let them fly," she said.
Seventeen cockateels and eight lovebirds flew away. Four lovebirds wouldn't leave.
By noon, Hurricane Ike's winds were already blowing at 35 miles an hour and the water was four feet deep.
Assignments Editor Bill Langlois continued to touch base with the Shermans throughout the day.
At 2 p.m., the water had risen over five feet high and was slowly creeping higher toward the Shermans' living area.
The last time Langlois spoke with Sherman, it was 6:45 p.m. Friday -- a few hours before Ike made landfall.
"The winds are blowing steady at about 60 miles an hour," Sherman said. "And the water is about two feet below my floor boards."
Sherman said he had to get off the phone to try and cut a hole in his ceiling so he and his wife could climb into the attic.
That was the last time we heard from him.
"When I heard he was getting in the attic, I thought that was the last of them," Langlois said.
Many 11 News viewers who heard the Sherman's story on the air Friday, e-mailed and called to ask about their fate.
We tried calling the Shermans several times after the hurricane passed, but we couldn't reach them.
After seeing the first aerials of the devastation on Crystal Beach, there wasn't much hope the couple could have possibly survived. Most homes were washed away and nothing but the stilts remained.
When the phone rang Wednesday morning, Langlois was shocked to hear a familiar voice on the other end. Frank Sherman was alive.
"We survived. We're alive and well," Sherman said.
Sherman said he and his wife were in their attic as the waves came in and washed the walls of their home out to sea.
"We spent the worst of the storm in a little crawl space of the attic, basically praying," Sherman said.
They had a a mccaw, a cockatoo and two dogs in the tiny attic with them.
Below, Ike's wind-whipped waves were tearing their home apart.
Frank: "And we got to sit there, looking down through the hole and watch the waves take the rest of the walls out and take everything out of the house."
Dee Ann: "The sounds were just unreal."
Frank: "We're hanging on to each other, hanging on to the rafters."
Dee Ann: "And he said 'Dee Ann, we're going to die,' and I said 'Baby, it's been good and I'll see you in heaven.'"
Dee Ann: "We just prayed 'Dear God, please let us live' and he let us live."
Miraculously, the attic and the roof protecting the Shermans from a certain death stayed intact.
"The storm finally got over after it lifted the house up in the air and slammed it down several times," Frank said.
"After the water started going down the next day, I spent two or three hours clearing debris from the floor inside of the house to where I could get my wife down out of the attic," he remembered. "Then I climbed down a pole into the water and the mud and scavenged around and found a ladder where she could come down eventually. Then I walked the roads up there until I found enough water and stuff for us to survive."
They tried to flag down several helicopters. Monday morning, a Medevac helicopter finally spotted them and alerted another chopper that came back for them.
"It's the closest thing I've ever come to kissing a man," Sherman said.
The Shermans managed to stay calm through the worst of the hurricane and its aftermath.
"You don't freak out during the emergency," he said. "It was afterwards, we broke down."
Sherman believes several close friends died in the storm, but officials have not confirmed any deaths on Crystal Beach.
He said looting is out of control. "I had to stand off one looter and we ran into several other looters that were down there just robbing jewelry and valuables out of houses."
Sherman and his wife are now at their son's home in the North Texas town of Granbury.
They're upset that they won't be allowed to return to their home to retrieve what few belongings they have left, including their dead daughter's ashes.
"We have nothing at the moment, except the clothes on our backs," Sherman said. "We lost our business, our home, you know everything, completely. And they want us to not go back for months, and leave all of our stuff exposed to the elements and the looters and that's just totally unacceptable."
The Shermans are also frustrated with news reports showing people complaining about no power or relatively minor damage.
"We see all of these people that are crying and moaning because they got some mud on their floor or their lights are out in Houston," Sherman said. "We don't see anything about our friends that died in Crystal Beach and about the fact that our world is totally devastated. I'm 60 years old and I have to start my life all over again."
